All Eyes on Parliament: January 24th

Predictably, Tony Blair is virtually alone among world leaders in supporting George Bush’s “new strategy” for Iraq. Blair says the plan “makes sense”. Is this the same Tony Blair who barely one month ago welcomed the Iraq Study Group’s report, saying, “It is practical, it’s clear, and it offers also the way of bringing people together”? The ISG report called for a phased withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and dialogue with Iran and Syria — in other words, the opposite of Bush’s “new strategy.”

There is one group that has always had the power to stop Blair’s compulsive subservience to George Bush: members of parliament. So far, the majority have acquiesced in every stage of Blair’s warmongering. On 24 January, Iraq will be debated and voted on in parliament. Stop the War has called for a lunchtime lobby of MPs, followed by an evening demonstration outside the House of Commons (details below). Between now and then we need to do everything possible to ensure that MPs know that they must not repeat their abject performance on 31 October 2006, when only 12 Labour MPs voted for an inquiry into the whole Iraq disaster.